TWO HOURS IN JAIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume VI, Issue 1706, 11 May 1869, Page 6

TWO HOURS IN JAIL.

V (From Zo>jd<>H Society.) ; r > It iVas the cool of the yrening of a> summer's day 'j as we approached the pirn outworks of the huge city '< prison at Holloway.. Close besido it is the residence " of tho governor, of clie jail, and there, inquiring, wo " were informed Jnat he was at that moment busy in j- the garden. JChere we discovered him—the : dreaded '» eiybrcer o- the law's just sentence, the responsible '' cmtodi;i-t of as much of brute ruffianism and vicious cvmni'ig and daring villainy as suddenly let loose 5 " wo*ld merge the town in horror and dismay—tho '> eighty potentate at whoso girdle, metaphorically l > speaking, hung the master-key of five hundred fast ! doors, behind which captive men and women sadly pined or defiantly scowled—there he was, serene and [ at his ease, with tho cuffs of his sober-gray garden , jacket turned back, pottering about a rose-bush, and . with nothing in his appearance to denote liim any other than a prosperous elderly gentleman with a taste for flower culture.. 1 Our visit'was not altogether unexpected, and after a cheerful greeting and a brief chat concerning chiefly . tho favorable weather and tho ravages of slugs, and similar garden pests the governor courteously invited as to follow him. Parting his private garden from the prison is a tall and massive pair of gates within which a warder sits constantly. These opened to us and then was revealed a trim graveled court-yards and at the end of it a second pair of gates, smallerbut more formidablo looking than the ■ first. More terrible, too, to contemplate, as every luckless -wretch must, who, for a period brief or prolonged, is doomed to lodge here. It is a frightful gale. We were in, formed that it was modelled after, that which guard, the entrance to Warwick Castle.; but it might, have been the portal of the castlo of the celebrated maneating old giaut Blunderbore, for, standing bolt upright against cither doorpost, was a dragon, not cut in dull cold stone, but- carved in wood, and painted by a man ivho knew, at least, how a dragon should appeal-, with fiery eyes and fiery tongue, and scales like plates of blue steel,' and claws the like of wliich were never sceii. Each dragon clutched a great black key, arid grinned as he glared down on whomsoever might be'entering in at the gate in a manner calculated to strike direst terror to the heart of those new to crimeful ways, though there probably are those so hardened in sin, and so familiar with the gate of ■ Holloway Jail, that the guardian dragons may havo 110 terrors for them, and they may return the tlireat- ' ening glare of the monsters' eyes with the. most, cool and selfposscssed of winks. ' It is at this door that every prisoner must pass. Just within is a capacious stoncpaved lobby, the most conspicuous furniture of which is a patent weighing maeliiue and a standard measure. Here it is that every prisoner is stripped, and examined and weighed, and measured, the. full particulars being entered in an enormous record-book that reposes in a corncr near at hand. I saw the book and some of tho most recent entries. Therein is written not- only the particular crime and the adjudged penalty of it that on this last occasion consigned the unfortunate to limbo, but also all known previous convictions against him. These ranged from 1 to 40, bui we were informed that the average of previously convicted cases did not exceed 5 per cent., which was an item of intelligence that agreeably surprisod us. We were likewise told that when winter's frost made itself felt,' thejivjinber of prisoners increased immediately, which was sadly '"slgniucsut of.. may drive-an-honest man to. Further, the record-book revealed to us—aud the Governor indorsed its evidence —that the most numerous class of criminals were of the breed known as " cockney Irish," the descendants of Irish people who Bettled in London two or three generations back. On a criminal entering Holloway Jail, tho examination and weighing and measuring at an end, the newly captured jail-bird is taken to a room where there is a deep and capacious bath, and a rack containing euits of prison clothing of various sizes. No matter what a prisoner's condition in life, whether ho be an a outcast, gutter-bred boy, whose only home is a prison, or a little and light-handed " prig" by profession, or the wing-whiskered city swell of elegant exterior aud handsome dress, brought to grief, perhaps, by the discovery of his first and only forgeiy— hero is an end to his worldly guise. -Here are the baths, and all comers enter them and the water they contain is the water of oblivion. - It is all over with the fallen swell. Up to this moment he may have clung to his black coat of respectable cut as a poor something that buoyed him, at -least in appearance, above the herd of low tliieve3 in, greasy fustian ; now ■ he must abandon it, and take unto himself the plumages of the common jail-bird. It is not a nice-looking ■q\ —It consists of a 1 y-.—-i n Unlit fitting suit oi sit^. c( Ooj. e a woollen, ot the style vulgarly known as the skeleton," and from the shoulder to the elbow of his right slocvc of it is oxhibited, in a showy border, the initial and number of the ward in which the said jail-bird's particular cage may be found. Before entering the bath-room, the prisoner strips, and leaves his clothcs of the outer world at the door, and they are gathered up and thrust into a string net, and so they arc baked and purified, after which inventory of them is taken, and they are ticketed, and stowed away until the expiration of the prisoner's sentence shall legalize his claim to them. On the same floor with the bath-room are a set of cplls called " reception cells," for the use of prisoners who may be brought in at a time inconvenient for their medical examination, indispensable before they may be admitted to the body of the prison. There ■were two such cases on the evening of our visit. Just outside the doors of the reception cells were two bundles enveloped in a net, and reposing on each, a pair of miry dilapidated shoes, tho property of the individuals who had come late. On cell number one . being unlocked, these was disclosed, suspended in a hammock slung from wall to wall,- a quick-eyed bullet-headed youth of tho true thief type. He appeared perfectly comfortable and at his ease. The cell, being for temporary use only, was unfurnished except for the hammock ; but that was provided with a nice clean woollen rug, which the young thie had pulled up as high as his ears, still shining and inflamed through recent acquaintance with hot water or yellow soap. Tho cell was arched, and as well as as my memory seircs, about 7 feet wide and 10 feet deep. Tho walls were whitened, and at the end, by tho wall, was a narrow window, barred with iron bars. Nevertheless, with the mellow sunlight streaming in, the place altogether appeared such a clean and sweet little bedroom, that, assuming the story suggested by the netted bundle and slipshod tattered boots outside tho door to be true —a story involving the hideous squalor of a " blind alley" at Cow Cross or Seven Dials, and the unspeakable horrors of a two-penny lodging house —it secmod that the young gentleman in the hammock, at present, at any ,rat<v had not much reason to bewail his hard fate. Quite kindly the governor spoke to him : " Well, lad, what are you here for ? " " Bit o' beef, sir, " the lad curtly replied, at the same time disengaging n hand from the folds of a blanket to respectfully tug at a. forelock of shown black stubble. " Stealing a piece of beef, do you mean ? " " Yes, sir. I—" " Silence! Go to sleep." And the young thief was loft to his repose. The door of the next cell was unlocked, and on a precisely similar hammock reclined a precisely similar lad, except that he had carroty stubble on his head instead of black. . " Well, lad, what are you here for ?" " Bit of meat, please sir." " You and another lad did it between you ?" " That's it, sir. He—" " Silence ! n And the door was closed, and the key turned in the heavy lock. " Is this their first offence should yon imagine?" we inquire of the governor as wo traverse a passage leading toward another part of the building. But tho governor shrugs his shoulders. " Not by any means; nor their last, I'm afraid. There is not much chance of our seeing the last of 1 them —until they are sent away." " Penal servitude. That's the common ending." " Well, is it riot very surprising that it should bo so. It is one thing to make a man. regret, his misdeeds, and another to place at his disposal means by which he may preserve himself against a repetition of them. As you say, offence after olfence are recorded against him, each one adding an additional clog to their unlucky feet, that possibly, if they had a reasonable chance, would gladly turn" to honest paths." But at this the governor made a grimace that stood as representative for tho laugh he woidd have uttered had he not felt the restraint of that inexorable rule ot his own imposing—silence. • " Inhere you are mistaken," he whispered "for ' we are much more human tlian you imagine. The prisoner who shows an earnest disposition towards amendment is never turned penniless and helpless out of jail. If. hie.' proves to us a disgust for die-

honest couraes, and his willingness to "work yve able, thanks to .a'certain fund, to place 1 the doing so m their hands. Sometimes a few shilKn r are" suflicient for the purpose, sometimes we if! r Sm * d 80 to invest several pounds. A large numbed 3 of the young prisoners havo a fancy for mine to 3 A ronng man came"" to see me only last week "FT. i came here just one of those homeless outcast' bov* w "° thieve t!lc . y may not- starve, of whom the*» ; are thousands in London, and he expressed a wish tn j be sent to sea, out of harm's way. He proved a good ' s?' j aVm f g ed <- h . is wa y U P to tho position of , second mate, ""Ttb a fair prospect of becoming gomer thingbptter. dined at my table last Tuesday." ' Ju-avo.vou many boys here at present ?" ' fnr f ° W " W ° llaTe cell accommodation L for 60, and our average number, for some time past i haa been only 16. . Come this way and you shall And, wondering all the while, we did as invited how was it that the per centage of juvenile criminals lodged m Holloway Prison wa3 so small ? When we asked the governor the proportion liis boy-lodr» e ™ bore to tho whole, it was infuli expectation of receivmg an answer that should warrant the natural alarm at the rapid increase of crime amongst lads of tender years. "Where were the score of humble imitators of Claude Duval and Dick Turpin, who having perused the veracious records of the exploits of these and simitar heroes of the gibbet, make desperate efforts of emulate them by murderously assaulting crippled old women, or running off with errand money confided to ' their care by too. trusting' masters ? "YVe referred, to the governor for explanation. " It is easily accounted for, said ho. " They find they have to work when they are here. " "VTe were about to follow our last question with another as to the way in which a young tlnef contrived to choose his prison, but this wa« rendered unnecessary by the sudden "recurrence to our memory of a conversation, bearing on the same subject, that recently had l taken place between a boy thief and a prison commissioner. '" How is it," the latter asked, " that, out of nine convictions against you, eight arc returned from one prison ? " "'Cos please, sir, I always prigs :in Holborn, was "the' candid rejoinder. When that salutary law for which the reader's humble sorvant has for so lon<» a time been asking is passed, and comes into operation ana the governer of Holloway Jail counts among his in- . mates, one or two of those dirty scoundrels who sain. their bread by the sweat of.juvenile mfctelity— •ipeans of tho penny weekly number svstem-*SS/>ro-per punishment would be to make them _thg~ t/jdges ,'of the boy criminal' ward—to compel them their victims' "shirts "and socks, and scrub floors, and be' generally l-eponsible for their personal cleanliness. .1 ■ The cells in which, the boy prisoners are confincd arc precisely similar to those of the adults; and, it beingnow after work hours, the greater part of the 16 lodgers were "at home. " Those wo spoko with didjnot seei)i very much hardened in crime, which, by the'way, is a long way from meaning that they were not conversant with crime. Boys are not like men, they are less reflective, and in nine cases out of teu have no care or reponsibility beyond what is strictly personal; consequently they are less impressed with the hardship of their condition, brooding on which is as likely to produce a hardening as a softening effect. As a rule, the condition of the. bov-thief while at liberty is a most miserable condition, and after the first " restlessness " has worn off, he finds that it it more comfortable to be in prison than out —a frame of mind scarcely calculated to bring about penitenee and reformatiou. There is one point, however, on which the boythief is, or pretends to be, especially tender, and that is concerning his mother. To be sure, there is no getting over the stern, sad fact, that nobody is so perfect a master in the art of dissembling as the intelligent, low-cunning little London thief. Let his jailer assume never so severe a manner in his dealings with him, before lie has talked with him three times he will have discovered his weakest feature (and even prison governors are not free from them ) and shape his manner and conversation accordingly. Thus, with all due rsepect for Q-overnor "Weatherhead, and his admirable system of management, he undoubtedly has a natural tenderness for boys, and his prisoners know it. Like a sensible man, he knows that until a boy has grown utterly abandoned, he will not forgot " mother and'it is certain that, in many cases, is is a sacred chord that.may be played on with charming and even miraculous effect; at the same time it it not impossible that his amiable weapon may be turned against him, and he may be imposed upon. _ Every boy we examined cried at once when his mother's name was mentioned, and the creditable exhibition of emotion was almost always rewardod by an encouraging pat on the head wiih the governor's benevolent hand. There was one case that came under our ; t , t) 10 boy that was somewhat peculiar. He was an incorrigible young ruffian, we i were informed, and had been in prison verv nans. ' times. He had only arrived at Holloway that moT%..> J ing, and, being set to work in ihe biickfield, before«<L _F was an hour there was guilty of foul language the officer in command, and was con&enjned- to 'tha' jf " dark cell." There we found him.. hideous place as a habitation for a human being conscience cannot easily be imagined. Dark is /S&ch too feeble a word to describe the black density that, 6hroudcd its interior. It is a cell within a cell, and even the outer one is so dark that only by the click of the key in the lock were we aware that the interior door had been opened, " Come here, lad! " And, emerging from impenetrable density, there gradually loomed to view the desperate incorrigible. He was not a very formidable ruffian to contemplate, being a slim-built boy, with a narrow white face, which was tearful, and had on it an expression suggestive of a horror of "bogies." He had evidently arrived at the dismal conclusion that he was doomed to pass the niglit in that awful.place, and had made cortain eccentric and unaccountable arrangements to that end. The collars, of his serge. j cket were pulled up high above his ears, making a fantastic setting for his I grimy, tear bestreamed eountenaec, while possibly I with a view to economizing all the comfort to be got i out'of a pair of trousers, he had loosened tho fastenings of those articles of raiment so that they wore all slouched about his feet, the braces of them' trailing behind him like a pair of white tails. " Well lad! what has brought you to this? How many times liave you been in tliis prison ?" " Three, sir,". (with a tremendous outburst of grief, and such a screwing of both fists into his eyes, that every feature of his face, except his wide mouth, was rendered invisible.) " Speak the truth, lad." " 3?our, sir." "Ay, at least four.- Why wore you put in the dark cell ?" " For swearin', sir. Leastways, he said as liow I swore, sir, but I know he was too far off to liars j heered rue. " i " Who heard you is nothing to the purpose; you 1 have incurred tlio penally, and you must pay it. | How long are you here for ? " § " Six months, sir." te " What for ?" E " Ste —stealing, sir." 1 " Have you a mother?" I " O yes, sir ! —O y—e —e —s, sir! " (with a fit of G sobbing that caused tho white tails to vibrate strange- B W I " Whore does she live ?" . f| " Manchester, sir. Ow —w —w! I was just think- g in' on her when you conic, sir. " js Governor,'evidently effected. " And.you can't da g| better than to think of her, if she is a good mother. a Just picture to your mind what she would think of | you, could she see you iu this disgraceful posi- | tion!" , j "Ow—w—w—w!" _ | " Will you promise never to swear again as long ss | you are here, if I let. yov. go back to your cell ? | Of course the fcarfid penitent promised nlO5 jj Bolemlv, and presently, too eager in his anxiety t* 3 | changc the dark cell for a comparatively light one o adjust his habiliments, came slouching behind usshp- | shod over the nsplialte floor, with the collar of us a jacket still shrouding his ears, and his trousers still j clutchcd up on either sido by the waistband. | The Anti-Tobacco Society might discover anionjp the inmates of jails many apt illustrations of tua | truth of their peculiar arguments. | Nothing is more common when a yout'iful enptivo | is questioned as to tho origin of his falling away | from the. path of rectitude, thau for him to attribute | it to " the short-pipe," or to " bad company ana || smoking and that, "orto " going out of evening ||| and buying cigars." One lad, at present incarcerated §g in Holloway Prison was possessed of such a ravenin a jg mania for the pernicious weed, that, aided by another boy he stole 050 cigars. Prisoners will run aunos gg »ny risk for a chew or a whiff of tobacco. It is known gg. that at Portland the convicts, having 0 ! n S& through the agency of a " free laborer " in the gg quarries, a piece of tobacco and a pipe, had a m g|l ' of disposing of it ft* ingenious almost, as-it

costing. As must be mentioned, smoking was strictly prohibited, very serious penalties being in store'for any one who assisted a prisoner to the coveted luxury. The only timo when the perilous delight might bo indulged in wns when in the course of the day's work a sudden shower came,on, and the convicts, knocking, off " for the time, huddled in a shed out of the rain. Then the envied shareholders in a fourth of a quarter of an ounce of cavendish sat in a circle, the " buck ' or head man, with the piDe in one corner of his mouth and in the other a straw, the other end of which was grasped within the lips of the next man of the circle, who likewise had a second straw in his mouth, the further end of which the third man sucked at, and so on till the number was complete. The pipe alight the " buck " took a draught of smoke through it at one corner of his mouth, enjoyed it for a moment, and then blew it through the straw at the other corner of his meuth into that of his next neighbour, and so it passed through, the last man having the privilege of swallowing the mouthful in consideration of his being at so great a loss in consequence of the deterioration in the flavor of tlio smoke in the course of its transit. At the House of Detention, the friends of prisoners have convened them a pipe and a pipe-light and tobacco in the interior of a loaf, (on one occasion a cigar and a match were found neatly wrapped up in the interior of a roast fowl,) and the desperate smoker has been discovered at the top of a platform, consisting of his table, and his pannikin, clinging tiptoe to the bars of a ventilator by the ceiling, and blowing a cloud of smoke through its narrow interstices. It is not so easy, however, to convey tobacco to a prisoner in a close prison such as that of Holloway. But it has been attempted. At stated times a prisoner's friends may pay him a visit. Tlio interview, however, is hampered by certain restrictions. On either side of a passage about five feet in width is a cage of open wife-work, conveniently disposed between the cages are screens behind which a warder may be lurking, listening to the conversation that is going on, so as to check it at once should it take a vague or improper turn. One day, in the course of innocent discourse between a prisoner and a male : "—* > £he warder's watchful eye detected a feather a ~- Jbg over from one cage to the 'other, and arrest-i-'i" ifi midway, found at the stem of it a length of fine / '£, and at tiie end of the thread in the visitor's hand i % nice little plug of pigtail for " chewing." Had the J feather settled in the compartment where the i prisoner was, nothing would be easier than for him to give a dexterous jerk at the silk, and land the plug on his own side. The miscarriage of the neat little plot meant severe punishment for the would-be receiver,; and a month's hard labour for the obliging supplier e and the fact of its being about fifty to one against the trick successfully passing, shows how terrible must be the penalty of deprivation from tobacco to an old smoker.

forbid the use of any music when and where he pleases, sare the Merbecke music to the Prayerbook. And in thus directly forbidding the use of the tune, he can indirectly forbid the use of the hymn. But, to put it conre.rsely, what is an episcopal injunction worth, touching a thing to be sung, if tnc Bishop is to choose the tuno and the people do not like it ? ,